Implemented Allow searching of soft deleted threads/posts/profile posts

digitalpoint

Well-known member
We use search extensively to find spammers, people slinging the same crap from the same websites, etc. It was quite a shock when I realized that soft deleted threads, posts and profile posts aren't searchable by mods/admins. Digging a bit, I realized the DataWriters actually delete the soft deleted items from the search index completely.

I ended up changing that and now posts, threads and profile posts that are soft deleted are searchable by mods/admins (the system already filters them out of search results for users who can't see them normally).

But it got me thinking... Why does XF by default go out of it's way to make soft deleted items not searchable for mods/admins?
 
Upvote 91
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It won't be added - 1.5 is more or less feature locked now and is in the pre-beta testing phase.
 
I just ran into an issue this morning where I wanted to see how many threads/posts were deleted for a specific member. The individual has thousands of posts, so going through a search of all their posts would be rather task intensive to come up with a count.

It would be nice to be able to include a "deleted" tag when searching for a member's posts to determine a deletion history.
 
All these months/years later, and this is still the most requested feature from my staff on the forums I manage.

We may have to bite the bullet and have an add-on made. It's really hampering our efforts at this point. One staffer might delete a bad post in a thread, and a few months later we can't go back and see why that happened (when a new issue with the same member comes up). With our posting volume and membership numbers increasing, it only gets worse.
 
In our forums, warning points are not a member's business. On one of my forums, I wasn't clear to staff that warning points were something that only staff should know about, have access to, and not divulge to a member. But now that it has slipped out, we get those few members who are constantly inquiring about their warning point totals. I intended it primarily to be a guideline for staff, to know how many warnings are accumulating, and to trigger a time-out for a member once they've gone off the rails one too many times.

One problem with members knowing the points is that they can skirt just under our automatic suspension level and spew crap all over the forums, and never get suspended. It'd be like hovering at 90 points constantly, as one warning drops off, they know they are good for another.
 
Agreed. It's important for members to know exactly where they stand and exactly what they've received warnings for in the past.
 
It's really hampering our efforts at this point. One staffer might delete a bad post in a thread, and a few months later we can't go back and see why that happened (when a new issue with the same member comes up). With our posting volume and membership numbers increasing, it only gets worse.
We move all relevant threads/posts to a moderators only forum, allowing full searching and archival review.
 
All these months/years later, and this is still the most requested feature from my staff on the forums I manage.

We may have to bite the bullet and have an add-on made. It's really hampering our efforts at this point. One staffer might delete a bad post in a thread, and a few months later we can't go back and see why that happened (when a new issue with the same member comes up). With our posting volume and membership numbers increasing, it only gets worse.

Just buy Digital Point's solution, it's not cheap but it's gotta be cheaper than getting an add-on made.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/digital-point-search.2267/

arn
 
We actually have to split posts and move threads into another forum to ensure we are able to search relevant content still.

Doing this naturally takes deleted posts/threads away from the original location which can make placing them with their context difficult (with soft-deleted posts, it's very easy to reveal the post when needed).
 
Presumably this is difficult to implement, as it's been 3 years? Is this being considered for XF2.0?

This has also been an on-going issue for me, and I think it's best resolved with a trash/recycle node that all soft deleted posts & threads get dumped into.

I've been doing this manually with Andy's add-on, but it requires a lot of diligence before the queue gets large:(
 
This has also been an on-going issue for me, and I think it's best resolved with a trash/recycle node that all soft deleted posts & threads get dumped into.
I prefer if they remain in place for easy restoration. If they are moved to a trash node, you have to know their source in case you do want them back.
 
I prefer if they remain in place for easy restoration. If they are moved to a trash node, you have to know their source in case you do want them back.

On other forum software, clicking restore sends them right back to the original thread and post position.

I find the current soft delete view ugly.
 
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